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Sharing – What We (Still) Refuse to Believe About Mental Illness
It’s true that most people dealing with bipolar or schizophrenia are not dangerous, and it’s also true that someone in the middle of a psychotic episode is not going to seem very “normal” to us. Unfortunately, what that often means is that people will call the police, because who else is there to call? Then, the police, who are trained to deal with dangerous criminals, act accordingly, because, again, they have no other training. The best option for them is to get the person off the streets and way from the public, which means jail, because, once more, there’s probably not anywhere else to take them.
Now they are part of the criminal justice system. A place with almost no mental health treatment available.
Of course, as the article below also reminds us, that’s only if they actually survive all of these encounters, which is, far too often, not the case.
Link – How To Bring A Casserole To The Psych Ward: And Other Ways To Serve Church Members Who Have Mental Illness
Obviously, from the title, this article was written to the church, but I honestly think the same advice applies to anyone who is dealing with mental health struggles and how any of us can be supportive of them. Amy Simpson, author of the book Troubled Minds: Mental Illness and The Church’s Mission, coined the term…
Mental Health Podcast Series From New Zealand
As always, when I come across a wealth of information about mental health topics, I like to share. So when I found this podcast series, I started listening to some of it, and now I’m sharing it with you all. Caveat, I have not listened to all 7 parts yet, so no guarantee that everything…
How We Talk to Ourselves Matters
As you read the rest of the article you’ll see how self-distancing conversations look a lot more like those conversations with friends I referenced earlier. Getting away from all of the “I” and “me” and fairly judging the situation quietly and calmly as if it was happening to someone else can put it into a perspective that we sometimes lose when we are thinking of ourselves, especially those of us who struggle with self-blame. Of course, then that self-blame turns to rumination which feeds into depression, and round and round we go.
There is a better way, and the examples given can help if we are willing to practice them. Especially the idea of reminding ourselves that we’ve already been through tougher, and more stressful situations and come out the other side.